THE WORDS I WISH TO SPEAK ALOUD

Month: January 2018

If we only had a second
I’d aim a smile your way
For two there’d be a kiss
To try and make you stay.
The same again for second three,
With the hope by second four,
You’d be down upon your knees,
Begging me for more.

If we only had a minute
I’d hold your hand for five,
Fingers laced together
Trying to survive.
By minute ten your hand might cramp:
Love can be a pain.
Then I’d take a minute more
And do it all again.

If we only had an hour
Think of what could be?
Talking, holding, loving
Time for you and me.
And in the lonely hours
That too often fall between
Hold on to thoughts of seconds
Where kisses can be seen.

My Dearest …….
It’s not an excuse
But I was never good at writing thank you letters.
They were always late,
Written in resentful hurry and full of mistakes.

This thank you is also late.

I am sorry.

However, my biggest mistake
Was waiting until you asked if I liked them
Before I could tell you how,
I don’t just like your gifts,
I love them.

What better gifts could there be
For when we are apart
Than to be able to imagine
You in the words I read,
Or close my eyes
And imagine
That it is the music of you that I hear
Beating in my heart,
Whispering in my ear.

I should have been more effusive in my gratitude.

I should have shown greater joy in receiving far more than I deserve.

I should have shown you how much more I love you for thinking of me, when I thought I’d been forgotten.

It’s odd isn’t it?
That I never tell you these kind of things
Face to face.
Ear to Ear.
That instead, I have to write it down,
Hide behind
Paper and pen
To tell you how I really feel
Because in real life I have become too scared?

Too scared to let you get too close again
In case you run away with my heart
But this time don’t bring it back.

There is no right of way across this field of dreams,
But I’ll duck beneath the barbed wire anyway,
Risk the scratches, torn skin, blood
Red and rusty
That falls like
Glossy tears of joy
From a heart too full of love,
To see if you’re still there
Waiting on that hill
Beneath clouds that scud in shimmering fear
From the fierce wind
That seems as though it could blow everything away
Except me
And
You.

Take me to the pigsty
Let me wallow in the mud
I want to have my fill
Right there in that old wood.
And when I’m fit to burst
And you think I can’t take more
Remember I’m sus scrofa
That wild old woodland boar.

All night the knot in the shoelace
waits for its liberation,
and the match on the table packs its head
with anticipation of light.

The faucet sweats out a bead of water,
which gathers strength for the free fall,
while the lettuce in the refrigerator
succumbs to its brown killer.

And in the novel I put down
before I fall asleep,
the paneled walls of a room
are condemned to stand and wait
for tomorrow, when I’ll get to the page
where the prisoner finds the secret door
and steps into air and the scent of lilacs.